Gareth Bale's transfer to Real Madrid was one that involved a huge fee, but leaked documents have cast doubt on the figure released to the media.
When the deal was done in the summer of 2013, Gareth Bale was said to have moved from Tottenham Hotspur for a fee believed to be in the region of €91 million euro.
It was one of the biggest transfers of all time, but it still meant that Cristiano Ronaldo was the most expensive player in the world, which according to Jonathan Northcroft may have been a key consideration in releasing that figure to the media.
Speaking to the BBC, he said that "Real Madrid are a club so worried about image that when I interviewed Bale it was requested to me, 'don't put in the article how much Gareth Bale cost'.
"The reason for that is because it was a world record transfer fee but Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't like to see that somebody else cost more than him".
However, leaked documents which have made their way into the Spanish press have shown that the figure was in fact higher than that, and Bale did end up costing more than the €96 million paid for the Portuguese.
According to Marca, because Madrid opted to pay the fee agreed for Bale in installments, the total would come to €99,743,542.
AS add that a fee of €1,015,875, in line with the partnership agreement reached by the two clubs after the transfer of Luka Modric, which would take the final fee to €100,759,417.
Image: Efrem Lukatsky / AP/Press Association Images
Further details revealed that there is one payment left to be made by Madrid to Spurs, which is set to take place in the summer of 2016.
The deal also reveals that Daniel Levy and Tottenham covered their backs pretty comprehensively, and that should Bale be sold back to any team in the Premier League before the 30th of June 2019, then they would have first refusal.
Furthermore, should they opt not to take up that option, then they will get €10 million from his sale to a rival club.
That looks unlikely to take place however, as Marca are reporting that negotiations to renew Bale's contract have started already. Presumably, that has nothing to do with that transfer ban they have coming up...
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